There's No Fun In This
by DoYouReallySeeMe
Summary: Some people say cutting is like an itch under the skin, an urge they just can't ignore. They wax poetically about how pretty the blood looks against their wrist and how easily the blade cuts into their skin – but it's not like that at all.


**Title:** There's No Fun In This

**Summary:** Some people say cutting is like an itch under the skin, an urge they just can't ignore. They wax poetically about how pretty the blood looks against their wrist and how easily the blade cuts into their skin – but it's not like that at all.

**Pairings:** Stiles/Derek

**Warnings:** Characters behaviors will differ from the television series. Timeline and events have changed: Derek is still Alpha, Jackson didn't leave for London, season three(a) is ignored, etc. Implied slash (meaning a male/male relationship). Implied romantic relationships between an underaged teenager and an adult. Angst. Drama. Romance. Definitely dark elements to the plot. Mentioned self-harm. Mentions of self-abuse. Triggering. Werewolves. Pack dynamic. Drabble-esk.

**Chapters: **1/1

**BETA:** This story is currently un-BETA'ed, I apologize in advance for any grammatical mistakes and spelling mishaps, if anyone's interested in helping me out feel free to PM me. Thank you.

**Disclaimer:** I claim no ownership over Jeff Davis' television series adaption of _Teen Wolf_; I own nothing of this television series or any of its syndicated characters; I claim no rights over any original plot points. I do own the following story and have used characters and text from the prementioned television series to create the world they live in. I gain no profit from writing this, but reviews are always welcomed.

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_Chapter One; Part the First; Part the Only._

Some people say cutting is like an itch under the skin, an urge they just can't ignore. They wax poetically about how pretty the blood looks against their wrist and how easily the blade cuts into their skin – but it's not like that at all. Skin is far harder to cut into than just that, you need to press down, twist your wrist just so, and sometimes even that isn't enough. Sometimes you're only left with raised lines, no blood and no cuts…but sometimes that's enough as well. Sometimes that's better even, maybe. Easier to hide at least.

When Stiles was younger and he grazed his knee, he didn't enjoy the sting of it. When his mom shushed him and held him tight against her chest, he hid his face against her neck because the blood was too horrible to look at. It's different now. Sitting on the edge of his bathtub, door locked and mirror fogged with steam from the shower, and he wonders how it changed so drastically – so quickly. The blood raises in peddles from the cuts on his thigh before filling the clean line of each cut and rolling in fat lines over the curve of his muscles. Stiles knows he hasn't cut deep enough for it to gush out in rivers, and even if it were to he would panic and wonder if he'd cut too deeply – wonder if he nipped at a nerve or artery, wonder if he needed to go to hospital (a constant fear), wonder at what lies he would need to make his story believable so they wouldn't try to section him. The lines aren't straight, but they're smooth. Pretty in their own way. His blade, a scalpel that cost him 69p from the local art shop with a red handle and a plastic cover for the blade, sits by sink. It neither looks so out of place that his eye was drawn to it but neither did it looked like it belonged either. Stiles wonders at half the rubbish he reads online about self-harm and cutting, none of it makes sense when compared to reality. There's no blood dripping from the blade, like the stories would lead him to believe, but there is dried blood flaking just were the handle meets the blade. The blade itself doesn't shine or catch the light like one story he'd read last night would have him believing and it just – he doesn't know what it does, but it makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time.

He draws another line into his skin with the blade instead.

There's nothing pretty or romanticized about it. It hurts, and that's the whole point. There's nothing cool about sitting naked in your bathroom and cutting into your skin. There's nothing fun about the way he sets up wet and dry tissues for after he's finished, bandages and hospital tape to keep blood from getting onto his sleep pants and alerting his father to something amiss. There's nothing remotely good or fun about any of this. It's an addiction. It's horrible, and it hurts in more ways than just how it makes him bleed. He wonders sometimes, what anyone would do if they found out. He thinks he's safe for now, he's always carful and the few times he's been too lost to think clearly and has gone for his arms it's always easy to lie and say he tripped – he caught it on something sharp – the latest big bad of the week got him with their claws. And even with a pack werewolves who can hear his heart skip and race as he lies, they never really catch on to what he isn't saying.

Stiles wonders what his dad would say if he knew. Would he cry? Or would he shout instead? Would he look at him calmly and say he was disappointed, that _Stiles_ was a disappointment? – it was a personal fear of Stiles', constant and unchanged that even after all he and his pack had been through together, the fear of not being good enough. (He draws another line into his skin with the blade and hisses when it crosses over another line that's no longer bleeding.)

He wonders about Peter, of the late night whisper of _you remind me so much of my son_, and wonders what his reaction would be as well. He wonders what Scott would do. Would he stare at him and not understand, ask why; would he get upset when Stiles couldn't give him an answer? Because Stiles doesn't know how this happened – why it started, how it stared, _when_ it started. He doesn't know when he made that first clean cut. He doesn't remember when he started purposely looking for ways to bruise his skin, because the marks lasted longer and he could give himself a short sting of pain by digging his thumb and nail into the black-green bruise whenever he wanted. He doesn't remember the first time he burnt the skin of his arm with a discarded lighter he'd found in the lunchroom at school, but he remembers the smell of burnt hair and how it had made him want to thrown up that first time – he remembers how it had scabbed over and how he'd picked at it for days and weeks after. (He draws another line into his skin with the blade.) He still gets a little lost whenever he looks into fire or burning flames now.

He wonders at the others. At what Lydia or Jackson would do if they found out. Would they look at him with pity, or would they scoff and laugh it off as attention seeking? What about Allison, Isaac, Cora…and what would have Boyd and Erica have said? Well, he knew Erica would have probably slapped him before walking him into some sort of help center. She would have been mad at him but she would have held his hand and shushed him under her breath like his mother used to when he started to cry – and she would have _understood_, because she always did. (But she was dead now. They both were. Killed. Murdered. _Gone_.)

And what would Derek say? Derek, who had lost so much already and looked out at the world with the shattered remains of a boy who had loved too easily. Derek, who wouldn't understand and who wouldn't let himself cry. Derek, who looked at him like he was something _more_. Derek, who wouldn't understand that this wasn't about Stiles killing himself, that this was about him being about to focus on a physical pain that…that silenced his mind and the thoughts that threatened to drive him crazy. It was about being able to focus on a physical pain that gave him a few broken moments of peace before it all come crashing down on him again. Derek, who wouldn't understand that this didn't mean Stiles didn't love him. Derek, who would hold him tight against his chest with clawed hands and fangs and glowing alpha-red eyes as he whispered words that begged Stiles not to leave him.

And as Stiles drew another line into his skin with the blade he wondered, what he would do – what would he say – when that day finally did come.

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Author notes: A very short, very random drabble. I really should stop writing these and focus on my stories, but I can't seem to help it.


End file.
